Sunnis thrown out of Homs for Allawite state

Bashar Assad’s forces are driving away Sunnis from residential districts in Homs to replace them with ethnic Allawites, according to a prominent member of the Syrian National Council (SNC).
The regime forces have combed Homs districts in recent months to track down opponents, he told Arab News yesterday.
The planned cleansing took place in several Sunni districts of the city: Karam Al-Zaitoun, Karam Al-Louz, Adwiya, Mureeja, Wajab Al-Jandali, Tadmur, Bab Al-Dareb and Zahra, the official said, adding that all Sunnis were driven away from some of these districts.
Muhammad Al-Turkawi, a leading member of the Council of Arab Tribes and a member of the SNC, said the regime has thrown out Sunnis as part of its efforts to establish an Allawite state, extending to the Syrian coast, as a last line of defense.
“The Syrian regime wants to deepen racial hatred among people in order to protect itself. At the same time opposition groups demand peaceful coexistence of all groups of people,” Al-Turkawi told Arab News.
The Allawites are concentrated in mountains and villages in cities (Tartous, Latakia and Bani Yas) located along the Syrian coasts. About 65 percent of people in these cities are Sunni. Homs is one of the strongholds of Syrian revolution, which witnessed many protest marches during the past months.
According to Saleem Al-Qabbani, a member of the coordination committee in Homs, the regime’s security forces were executing a programmed plan to drive out Sunnis from the city.
“People in Shumas were facing pressure to leave the district.” Most Sunnis have taken refuge in Al-Waar district.